Entrapment
by seven dials
Summary: Youji and Ken have been trapped in any number of strange places, but always managed to get home free. So why can't they get out the stock cupboard? Completed, rated for strong language and equally strong boy's love style fluff.


**Entrapment**  
a Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

Standard Copyright Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz, it's characters, indices and all the rest of it remain the property of Kyoko Tsuchiya, Koyasu Takehito, Project Weiss, TV Tokyo, Movic and any other individuals or groups whom I may have left out, including the company responsible for the terrible US dub whose name I don't actually know. This is a fan work from which no profit has or will be made, written for the enjoyment of myself and the half-dozen other people out there who also like Youji x Ken fanfiction. Damned 'unusual pairing'…

Author's Notes: Youji_plus_ Ken_plus_ Stock Cupboard With Dodgy Lock e_quals_This Shamelessly Fluffy Fanfiction. This thing was meant to be short – two, three pages at the most – but something happened, as they say, on the way to Heaven and the fic ended up with a little longer than that which is rather sad considering all I wanted from this was mildly comic YoKen WAFFy-ness. I have trouble coaxing these guys into kissing, perhaps because they always seem keener on bickering. If you aren't in the mood for blatant BL fluff, equally brazen cuteness, plot contrivances beyond the call of duty, a rather _Deus ex machina_ Omi and a sprinkling of angst to taste, do not read on.

Brief grammar and punctuation errors zapped courtesy of kasugai gummie's inadvertant 'beta read'. Thanks for pointing those out! I bet it'd have been weeks before I noticed them myself (I have a terrible habit of utterly missing typographical errors until weeks afrer posting when left to myself). Maybe I need to go looking for an actual _proper_ beta reader sometime soon…

* * *

The stockroom door stuck, sometimes. Sometimes, the lock caught. Sometimes you couldn't get the damn thing to open; other times the damn thing wouldn't shut. It had been that way for just about as long as Ken could remember it. He kept meaning to do something about it but somehow never quite got round to it. Youji had said he was definitely going to fix the thing on more than one occasion as well: Youji hadn't done anything about it either. That was the nature of domesticity. 

Aya and Omi hadn't mentioned it. The door, Ken thought, would never have dared to fuck with Aya: nothing and nobody ever did. Omi, who only had tohandle the thing at evenings and weekends, clearly didn't think it was that big a deal.

Ken remembered, vaguely, his father promising to fix a – he couldn't recall quite what. Window-catch, perhaps. Or door handle, cupboard door, desk drawer. Something simple. He just knew the man kept saying that he would mend it, that he never quite managed to. Ken remembered it being one of the only things his mother (a cheery, comfortable, circular woman) really found irritating. He thought he remembered that, anyway. Deep down he wasn't really sure any more. Everything he had of his family was vague, or painful, or both.

(Which was why he didn't care to think about his family much.)

Ken struggled with the door handle instead, shifting the lacquerware pots he held. He had spent the afternoon working on fifty plus arrangements for a birthday party. He had wondered whilst working what kind of party could possibly have called for fifty plus pots of flowers and what kind of person demanded their family and friends made such a fuss over the simple fact of their making it through another year. It spoke in an undertone of a world of old money and friends in high places, all things Ken was a stranger to. He'd thought of asking Aya what the Hell anyone would bother doing something like that for, might even have gotten round it if Aya hadn't been… well, Aya.

He pushed that thought aside, too. He was thinking about the pots. He didn't want to put the pots down for the sake of getting the stockroom door open. He didn't want to drop them. He just wanted to get his work done so he can finish clearing up the shop. Ken wanted out of the shop; he wanted away from Youji. Youji had been annoying the Hell out of him all afternoon and the sooner he could get away from him, the happier Ken thought he would feel.

He felt awkward round Youji at the moment. No reason for it, or at least Ken hadn't wanted to consider what the reason for it might be; he just did. That Youji had noticed his discomfiture wasn't helping matters.

It should not, he thought furiously, have taken two hands to open the bloody door. He could tell Youji was watching him. He could tell the guy was smirking at his turned back, as if his failure to get the thing to play ball was somehow symptomatic of something much greater than a recalcitrant lock in a ill-hung door. He hadn't noticed that Youji was quietly stalking him, walking silently and cautiously across the shop floor until he was stood almost behind him. Ken was too busy trying to get the door open.

"Having trouble, Kenken?" Youji said in his ear.  
Ken yelped. He wasn't expecting that. He nearly dropped the pots he was carrying. Youji reached out and relieved him of them – it was a kind gesture, but a pointed one. "Oh fuck _off_, Youji." He could say that now; the store was empty, it's shutters drawn, their only company Momoe's fat little cat, sat smugly on the table and watching them with all the inscrutable superiority that comes with being born a feline.  
"Can't you even open doors now, Kenken?" Youji asked. "If I was even half as clueless as you are, kiddo, I think I'd give up."  
"Shut up." Ken said, still struggling with the handle and bracing his body weight against the door. Since the door clearly wasn't going to be amenable to sweet reason he thought he might as well go with brute force. "You know this bloody door's not— _finally_!"

The door had decided to see things Ken's way. Suddenly he didn't need to be leaning on the thing after all; it nearly knocked him off his feet. He steadied himself on the recalcitrant handle and turned to take the pots from Youji, but the blonde stepped past him and into the cramped, darkened stockroom, flicking on the dusky, barely adequate light and placing the lacquerware pots back on their shelf. Ken hurried back to the table, grabbing the bag of potting compost he'd been using to stand the flowers in and half-carrying, half-dragging it back into the stockroom with him. Youji watched him. Recently, he'd come to suspect that he watched Ken too often. Far more than he should have done, or ever have wanted to do.

Youji thought, as he always did, that _stockroom_ was a rather grand name for this place. The room reveling in that description was, in truth, little more than a glorified closet, its shelves lined with pots and vases, bags of compost and blocks of oasis, reels of wrapping paper and spools full of garish ribbon; the various paraphernalia of the florist. It always felt cramped; add Ken and himself and it became even more so. It smelt, as it always did, of damp earth and leaf mold. It needed to be tidied up, Youji thought, but he decided he wasn't going to point it out. Ken would only say, if you want to tidy it up, you bloody do it and Youji didn't think the place was quite that untidy.

He turned. Ken, the bag of compost slumped awkwardly by his feet, was frowning at him, hands on hips and an exasperated look in his eyes. Youji guessed the kid thought he was in the way or something. Given how cramped the place was, he wouldn't have blamed him.

"The shop won't go away," Ken pointed out, "even if you hide out in here all evening."

Youji didn't say anything. He stepped aside to let Ken step by. Ken brushed past him, carrying the compost. He wondered if he could stage a trip and accidentally spill the bag over Youji. The blonde's shirt, Ken knew, was both new and absurdly expensive. He could imagine Youji's reaction to ending up with compost all down that brand-new shirt so clearly that for a moment he fancied he had actually done it. He placed the bag down on the floor where it slumped, depleted and dejected, next to its gravid companions. Ken ignored it. He brushed a spot of compost from his apron (powder blue; why had he ended up with that one? Why have different colored aprons anyway?), only to look up and flinch at the sound of a soft click.

"What the Hell are you doing?" Ken said. He wasn't angry. He was too surprised for that. Youji was stood by the closed door, one hand resting on the handle. And smirking, still. His smile was slappable. Ken folded his arms, resisting temptation. "Well?"  
"I'm proving a point, Ken." Youji said smoothly.  
Ken blinked. "A _point_?"  
"You made such a fuss over this door just now," Youji said, "I thought I needed to point out to you where you were going wrong." He smiled, tapping the handle with two slender fingers. The look in Ken's eyes, he thought, was absolutely priceless. Ken was aggrieved, Ken was trying to hide it and Ken was failing miserably. Youji smiled at him, and shook his head when all it did was make Ken look even more hard done by. "You don't see me struggling with this thing like that, do you?"  
Ken sighed. He contemplated losing his temper. He decided there wasn't any point, decided to hear Youji out. Might as well let the smug bastard make his predictable point, he thought, and get out of here. "So," he said finally, just about managing to restrain his temper, "_what's_ your point?"  
"There's a knack to it." Youji said, and turned cool as you like to the door. "If you were to lift the handle slightly before you tried to open it…"

His turned back radiated confidence. Ken sighed and leant against one of the shelves, waiting for this to be over. He was thinking about something else. He was thinking about how tired he felt. He was wondering if, after the afternoon he'd had, he could really be bothered to cook tonight or not and, if he decided that he didn't feel like it after all, what he was supposed to do with the rice he'd prepared this morning. And what, in that case, he and the others were supposed to do about getting food. He realized that Youji was still stood by the door. Something about this didn't feel at all right.

Ken watched for a moment or so, then gave into impulse. Broke his silence.

"This is just a wild guess, Youji, but is something supposed to be happening about now?"  
Youji raised his head. He was looking decidedly less than cool. He looked flustered. "Give me a moment here, Ken." He said tersely.  
"_What_?" Ken didn't think he liked the sound of that. Three paces took him to Youji's side, left him hovering over the young man's shoulder. Youji was still struggling with the handle. Ken, oblivious, was crowding him. "Youji, you fucking idiot, what the Hell have you done?"  
Youji frowned at the boy over his shoulder. Too close, far too close; close enough that he could feel his breath. Normally he wouldn't have minded. This was not a normal situation. Jesus, Ken, he thought sourly, will you give a guy a bit of space? "I don't understand it. It always worked before." He sounded frustrated, more, he seemed surprised. Maybe even a little betrayed. Ken thought it was probably the least cool thing he'd ever heard Youji say.  
"Of course it did you moron, you were always outside before!" Seething, Ken kicked the door – common sense told him it was safer than doing the same to Youji, though nowhere near as immediately satisfying – hoping to intimidate it into opening. It didn't give an inch. Of course it didn't; the door opened inwards. "Ow. Shit!"  
Youji pushed him roughly back a foot or so, the gesture betraying exasperation. "Let me handle this, Ken. I know what I'm doing."  
"Was that before or _after_ you got us trapped in the bloody supply closet?"  
"Nobody is stuck anywhere. Now will you shut up and give me some space?"  
"This would be funnier," Ken said pointedly, "if you hadn't locked me in here too."

He stepped back, leaving Youji to his struggles with the door. From the blonde's stifled curses, from the way he tugged viciously at the handle, Ken could tell that the only success the guy was having was in raising his own blood pressure. Youji could deny it all he wanted, Ken thought, but they really were stuck in here. In the stockroom. After the shop had closed. All because Youji just had to go try and score a pointless point off him. Christ, Youji was a jerk.

Fucking fantastic.

Cursing softly, he kicked one of the full bags of compost onto its side. It landed on the floor with a heavy thump. Youji turned from the door just in time to see him sit down on it, leaning back against one of the cluttered shelves. He regarded Youji through suspicion-narrowed eyes, almost as if he were daring him to try and open the door again. Really, what was the bloody point? For a moment they simply watched one another; the silence became challenging. Ken cracked first.

"We _are_ trapped in here, _aren't_ we."  
Youji sighed. "Looks like we are." He said levelly. He stepped away from the door, raising his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender then leant against one of the shelves, offering his companion an apologetic grin. "Guess you were right about the door after all, Ken." He said with a shrug, reaching in his apron pocket for his cigarettes.  
Ken guessed his intentions. Ken frowned at him. "No you fucking don't, Youji."  
Youji's hand stilled over the packet, and he looked down at Ken in mock dismay. "No smoking?" he asked disbelievingly.  
"No smoking." Ken repeated firmly. "It's bad enough being stuck in here without you stinking the place out on top of everything else, I can't see any customer taking to wrapping paper that smells like someone used it for a goddamn ashtray… hey, give me your lighter. I don't trust you with it."  
"Ken—" Youji began.  
"_Ken_, what?" Ken interrupted. "Don't even, Youji. I can just about handle being stuck here with you but you and a cigarette's pushing it. Give me the lighter." Being trapped in the stockroom, of all places, with Youji, of all people, was going to be trying enough without having to tangle with secondhand smoke.  
Youji raised one eyebrow, pulled a face; a parody of irritation. "You're a total ball-breaker, Hidaka."  
"Whatever. Give me the bloody lighter."

Maybe it was the realization that they were stuck in an enclosed space with only one another for company which had Youji complying with the demand, but for whatever reason he capitulated – albeit with rather bad grace. He attempted his best whipped-puppy look as Ken tucked the lighter into the pocket of his apron then settled back down on the bag of compost he had knocked to the floor. The look worked pretty well on women; it might have done the same to Ken had he not made a point of pretending not to notice it.

Ken was trying, Youji could tell, to make himself comfortable. Not a bad move. All there was for them to do was wait for their teammates to realize something was up and come get the damn door open and God knew how long that might take. It might take a long time for Omi to notice neither of them was around. It would, Youji thought rather cynically, take even longer for Aya to start to care. He'd probably be glad to see the back of them for a few hours. Even if it was because they were locked in the stockroom. Aya would probably think they deserved it or something. God knew Aya wouldn't mind seeing the back of Ken for a few hours, given the way they argued.

Sometimes Youji thought Ken was right about Aya. Still, it wasn't like the kid would be thinking much more warmly about him at the moment. He wasn't sure how he felt about that…

Ken watched him warily out of the corner of his eyes, watched as the blonde lounged against the stubborn door, hands in his pockets and an easy, confident little smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Youji looked relaxed, utterly contented in spite of their situation. It wasn't often Youji looked anything but. Cool, languid, casual Youji. There was something obnoxious about his poise. That kind of nonchalance wasn't natural, it simply _couldn't_ be natural, not if you asked Ken. He must have cultivated it. Somewhere along the line, he would be playing at serenity.

… sometime in his teens Youji must have decided, right, I'm going to be cool. He must have set himself up to be that sort of guy, must have striven for poise, grace, style…

Ken couldn't have managed that. Not ever. He looked down at himself, tugging absently at the laces of his trainers. He knew Youji wouldn't have been caught dead in shoes like his. He looked a mess; how come Youji didn't, in fact didn't ever? How come the guy could stay so much tidier than he did when they worked in the same damned shop and did the same damned job? How come, Ken wondered, he hasn't got potting dirt on his shoes? How come he _never_ has dirt on his shoes?

Why was he always so irritatingly cool?

"You're supposed to be cooking tonight, right?" Youji said after an uncomfortable pause.  
"Yeah, so?" Ken said. Surprised. "What's that got to do with anything?"  
"Well," Youji pointed out with, to Ken's eyes at least, an almost wholly inappropriate grin, "at least Omi'll notice you're gone when he gets hungry and realizes nobody's fed him yet."  
"Great," Ken said with a sigh, "so that'll be in what, three, four hours' time? Maybe even longer if he's on the goddamn computer." He dropped his head, his hair hanging into his face and hiding his eyes. "Remind me to kill you, Youji."  
"You can't do that," Youji said, casually raking his artfully tumbled hair back from his eyes and smiling winningly; an obviously practiced gesture which Ken failed to see the point of. Why bother with just the two of them here? Why would Youji be smiling at him like that? "Just think of how many beautiful women would cry because I wasn't around to date them!"  
Ken glared at him from beneath his fringe, untidy only because that was the way it always was. "…_definitely_ gonna kill you." He muttered. Probably with a trowel. Was there a trowel in here? There were definitely shears. Maybe if he threatened to give Youji a haircut he'd never forget the vain bastard would shut up for five minutes?  
If anything, Youji's grin only broadened. "It's not my fault you're hopeless with girls, Kenken."  
"Shut up."  
"Or are you jealous?"  
"Shut the fuck _up_, Kudou." Anyway, jealous of who? Safety, Ken knew, lay in silence.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Ken thought irritably, Youji hasn't even got the decency to keep his goddamn mouth shut. It was bad enough having to spend the best part of the evening stuck in the stockroom with Youji without the guy insisting on actually _talking_ to him as well. Or rather, teasing him. Again. Didn't the guy get quite enough of that already? If they really had to be stuck around one another then why, Ken wondered, couldn't they use this as some kind of cheesy-ass bonding exercise rather than yet another excuse to wind one another up? At least that way they'd both be likely to get out of here alive and in one piece.

Oh well. It could always have been worse, Ken reflected. He could have been stuck in here with Aya. Now that would have been a recipe for plant pot induced homicide.

"You know," Youji said after a few moments of blissful silence, "in the right company this could have been a very interesting experience, but…" He sighed and did so deeply, letting the sigh comment for him. Maybe it wasn't the brightest of ideas to try and get a rise out of Ken right now but what the Hell, he was damned bored.  
Ken scowled at him. He was beginning to feel very annoyed. He was beginning to consider hurling something large and heavy at Youji. Smart people do not piss off assassins, kind of thing. Maybe this would degenerate into a plant pot death-fest after all. "Which particular part of 'shut up' is presenting you with all these difficulties…? Look, Kudou, your stupid idea got us stuck here. This is your fault, not mine. Don't you now go complaining you don't like my company."  
"What else am I supposed to make of your company when you won't even let me smoke?" Youji asked, his tone mock-indignant. "This isn't much fun for me either, you know that, Kenken? But hey, I guess it's not your fault you're not, say, Manx or someone. Now, if I was in here with _Manx_…"  
"She'd beat you senseless before five minutes were up." Ken pointed out, entirely factually he thought. "And I wouldn't bloody blame her for it either."

Which comment led Youji to pretend to look offended, and then to silence again. Well, if that was what Ken said he wanted… very well, he thought, we'll see who cracks first.

Ken was almost relieved that Youji had developed the good sense to stop talking for a few minutes at first, but after a while silence began to pall. It began to occur to him that it was going to be bad enough stuck in here for God only knew how long without having to do it in monastic silence as well. If that was the deal, he might as well have been stuck in here with Aya after all. A tall, blonde Aya in the early stages of nicotine withdrawal. Okay, so there was something worse than Youji talking to him and wouldn't you just bloody know it, it was Youji _not_ talking to him. There was, Ken thought, so much irony in their situation it was nauseating.

"Say something." Ken said finally.  
"First you tell me you want me to shut up," Youji said with a wry smile. "Now you tell me I'm being too quiet. Is there no pleasing you, Kenken?" He'd known Ken wouldn't be able to keep the silent act up. Silence wasn't in his nature.  
… and maybe it would have been better to be in here with Aya after all? "Stop calling me that."  
"Calling you what? Kenken? What's wrong with it?"  
"First off, my name is Ken." Ken pointed out. "It's just plain _Ken_. Second, 'Kenken' sounds goddamn stupid. Third, it really pisses me off. Is that enough?"  
Which at least, going by Youji's blink, was news to him. Maybe, Ken thought, he hadn't known how much that nickname irritated him and, he supposed there was no reason why he should have done when Ken hadn't told him. "Really? I think it suits you."  
"Well I think it doesn't." Ken replied, and he did so perfectly reasonably. "That's my name you're butchering there. How would you like it if I went round calling you… oh, I dunno, Yoyo or something?"  
"Yoyo?" The blonde couldn't quite manage not to snicker. "I'd think you'd lost it if you started calling me that."  
"And you really think Kenken sounds any better?"  
Youji shrugged. "Not exactly better. But I mean it that it suits you. It fits."  
"Fits?" Ken echoed.

Youji only smiled, stretching slightly as he finally stepped from the door. It was an odd little thing, that smile, quite unlike the young man's sleepy, satiric grin. It seemed somehow contemplative – almost, if such a thing were possible from a smile, serious. Ken caught himself staring at him, he thought in sheer incomprehension. He watched, without really meaning to do any such thing, as Youji absently tested the door handle again then, sighing (it could have been in resignation), taking off the apron he had been wearing, spreading it out on the floor, sitting heavily on it. He even sat down with languid, pointed grace.

He was too close, Ken thought. He pulled hastily away from Youji, drawing his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on his folded arms and trying, again without really meaning to, to make himself small. They had no choice but to sit as good as next to one another, trapped at such close quarters, but that didn't mean Ken had to feel comfortable with it. There was something awkward about being so near to Youji, something he didn't think there would have been had he been stuck with Aya or Omi instead, not that he ever would have been… and then there was the smile, and that only made him feel more uncomfortable still.

What's the smile for, Youji?

He could have asked, but somehow he didn't. Somehow, Ken didn't think it would be quite right. He felt (but why he wasn't quite sure) that mentioning that strange, contemplative little smile would have been a rather tactless thing to do. It wasn't like Youji would be doing it deliberately, was it? All the same he couldn't help thinking, he looks odd.

Ken wondered why he had been watching Youji so intently, if Youji had been watching him back. True, there was nothing else to look at unless he counted the contents of the shelves, the back of the door… why should looking at him have felt like such a weird thing to be doing? Maybe it wasn't what he did which felt so strange, but the way in which he was doing it. How was he doing it? He was just looking. There was no harm in looking and it wasn't like either of them had anything better to do, or anything to do at all…

"Looks like it's gonna be a real dull evening."  
"You think I'm dull?" Youji asked. He was frowning. Had, Ken wondered, he decided to take that seriously? How so? How could anyone have taken something like that personally? Go figure Youji; Ken certainly couldn't.  
"I didn't say that." Ken replied. He thought he sounded impatient. He thought he'd replied far too quickly. "Being stuck in this cupboard with anyone at all would be damned boring just because… well, look at it. It's the goddamn stockroom. What's interesting about it?"  
Youji simply smiled again. "Forget the stockroom, Ken."  
"How in the bloody Hell am I meant to forget about the stockroom when I'm stuck in it?"  
"If you're going to go on about that all evening of course you're going to be bored." Youji said, in an infuriatingly reasonable tone of voice. "You were the one who wanted to talk. Try talking about something else."

The most exasperating thing was that Youji, that bastard, was completely right.

Why was it that, with silence insinuating itself between them once again, he couldn't seem to think of anything to say? Youji was watching him, not doing anything, just watching and all of a sudden Ken felt awkward. He knew the guy was only doing it because it beat looking at the spools of garish ribbon on the shelves above him, or making eye contact with the bags of potting compost next to him, but still he felt self-conscious. And why not? It was beginning to dawn on Ken what the pair of them must have looked like, what they were going to look like when Omi or whoever found them. How completely absurd this situation was.

A pair of assassins, of all people, winding up trapped in a store cupboard, of all places. They'd escaped from any number of dodgy places in their time, he and Youji both, and here they were unable to get out their own fucking _store cupboard_ because the door had seized up on them. There was something strangely comic about it.

"Cat got your tongue?" Youji asked suddenly.  
"Uh?" Ken started. "Oh. No. I was just thinking… can you think of anything else to talk about? I'm stuck."  
Youji laughed briefly – a small, soft exhalation. It sounded, Ken thought, strangely like a sigh. "Never thought you'd have a problem with that." He said easily; he didn't even allow Ken a token moment for the tease, mild though it was, to register before he'd already moved beyond it. "What were you thinking about?"  
"I was thinking… well, I was thinking this must look goddamned lame." Ken said. He couldn't quite hide his smile; an open, genuine, almost boyish thing, that smile. "Jesus, Youji, _look_ at us. We've got away from God-knows-what over and over and here we can't get out the storeroom. Isn't there some kind of irony in this?"  
Trained killers foiled by a dodgy lock. Youji couldn't help but smile himself. Good God, if Manx could see them now, if Birman or Persia could – if their _enemies_ could. So much, he thought, for Weiss. Balinese and Siberian outwitted by the evil Jammed Door. No wonder Ken had been trying not to laugh. "Weren't we trying to talk about something else?" he asked, but he was smiling too.  
"But it _is_ goddamned lame, right? Why don't we bust the door down?"  
"Because Aya'd make us pay for it." Youji said simply, logically. "Bad enough we're stuck in here at all without losing wages over it, too. Guess we'll just have to resign ourselves to—"  
Ken cut him off. "— to looking like a pair of goddamn idiots when the others find us."  
"Yeah." Youji said, smiling wryly; the joke was on them, on him, and he knew it. What was there to do about the situation but accept it? "To looking like a pair of goddamn idiots, Ken."  
"Just so you remember," Ken said, but without any real animosity, "this is all your fault."  
"_My_ fault? You were the one who couldn't open the door…"

The conversation meandered and led itself willfully astray, finally dragging its effortful way back onto familiar ground only to get hopelessly lost again within minutes. They had, Youji recognized, nothing in particular to talk about. Nothing and nothing to do but to talk, to try and fail to get comfortable, to stare at the four walls and one another.

One another. Youji wasn't sure how comfortable he was with that, with having nothing to do but watch Ken and be watched back in his turn. It had been only recently that he'd realized, or allowed himself to realize how often he, when faced with the prospect of having nothing very much to see or do, would watch Ken out of the corners of his eyes, watch as the boy wandered round the shop absently busying himself with some small chore, or, head bowed, worked diligently and disinterestedly on some arrangement, or stared out of the shop windows and pretended he didn't wish he were anything but a florist and anywhere but there. Youji would tell himself that he could always turn away, that he would any minute…

Now he had nothing at all to look at aside from Ken, and looking felt like an intrusion.

The longer Youji looked at him, the stranger and more pointed looking began to feel.

And, gradually, talk turned personal. Gradually, as Youji exhausted the possibilities of trivia, as Ken's attention wandered and he shifted uneasily, playing briefly and absently with a reel of tape, nearly knocking over another bag of compost. Youji's comment about wishing he'd brought his order pad in – at least they could have played noughts and crosses or somesuch – foundered on Ken's irritable declaration that he wasn't that bored and would never be that bored. God save them both from ever being stuck somewhere together for real, Youji had thought, only to force the thought aside. It felt like bad karma even to think it and at least in that case they'd have had something real to think about. Like escape, and the possibility of it. Like what would happen to them.

He'd been teasing Ken. Something about the girls in the store and why couldn't he be anything other than _polite_ to them, and didn't any of them do anything for him at all? Perhaps, Youji had thought, Ken was just picky, or perhaps it cut deeper than that… All the same, why stop at friendly?

"You know why." Ken said quietly, flatly. "Same reason you won't get close."  
"What do you mean, I don't get close?" Youji asked curiously.  
"Well, look at you. You're always dating, but you never stick with the same woman for more than a few weeks." The boy replied. The tone of his voice, the expression on his face told Youji that Ken hadn't set out to be impertinent or score a cheap point off him. He was only making an observation, if a disconcertingly accurate one, and falling foul of his own frankness. "Normally it's always different girls. I used to think, okay, he gets bored real quick, but I'm not sure any more."  
He shouldn't have felt insulted, not when all Ken was doing was telling the truth. Somehow, though, insulted was exactly how Youji felt. "Then what do you think the reason is?" Since you're obviously such a good judge of character. Hidaka, who do you think you're kidding? His voice sounded sharp, aggressive.  
Ken blinked, caught off-guard by the feel of Youji's exasperation. "I didn't mean you didn't care or weren't trying or anything like that." He sounded startled.  
"Then what did you mean?"  
"It's dangerous." Ken said simply. "That's what. I think you don't get close to those girls because either they'll get hurt, or you will, or…" He broke off, an awkward smile on his face, as if he knew he'd already said too much, but Youji could tell that he didn't regret his own audacity.  
"Or we both will." Youji finished for him. "Exactly."  
Exactly. "Then you didn't need to bite my head off." Ken said somewhat resentfully. "I'm just saying. If it bothers you, you shouldn't do it." And don't blame me for pointing it out. "Why do you do it anyway?"  
"Why don't you?" Youji asked, and once again it was a genuine question.  
"Huh?"

The question had definitely taken Ken aback. He looked up, eyebrows raised, regarding Youji in confusion for a moment or two. What the Hell had brought that on? Okay, he supposed it was only the exact same thing he'd just asked in reverse, but asking why a guy chose to sleep around, well, it was only logical. Asking someone why they didn't, to Ken's mind, more kind of wasn't. You didn't do it because… well, he'd never really paid that much thought to the _because_, but he knew it was something you weren't really meant to do…

… then wondered why the ethics of it all could still bother him. Even had he desired to do any such thing, he really wasn't in any position to start taking the moral high ground with Youji. It was sure as Hell morally wrong to murder people for money; they were all damned anyway so what difference did it make? Youji's getting round a bit was a small thing compared to all the rest of it. What was lust in the face of Thou Shalt Not Kill?

"I guess I don't really want to," he said, because he had to say something, and only realized afterwards that it was nothing but the truth.  
"And that's the only reason?"  
"Pretty much." Ken tugged absently on one of his shoelaces again and recognized it for a desperate attempt at displacement activity. He was finding it difficult to look at Youji; he didn't know why, he just was. End of story, or at least he hoped it would be. Why would looking at Youji have been an awkward thing to do anyway? Maybe it was because of what they were talking about. That was probably it. "I've not really thought about it before."  
Youji smiled and again Ken, stealing a glance at him from beneath his untidy fringe, thought his smile strange. "Different priorities, then."  
"Yeah, well. Obviously."

Very different priorities. Ken had always told himself, always been told that there'd be plenty of time for girls and dating later: Youji must have reasoned, why wait? It wasn't like he'd had anything else to think about, not in the same way Ken knew he'd had. Different upbringings, too, not that Ken felt any need to go into that. Youji had never really mentioned his family either. He obviously didn't want to talk about it any more than Ken did.

"So… now I've told you why I _don't_ screw round, are you gonna tell me why you do?"

… and Youji knew why Ken had hesitated, why the boy had been so taken aback by his question. Because there was no easy answer, nothing he could really put his finger on and say _yes, Ken, this is the reason_: he enjoyed the company of women, he needed the release sex provided, needed to feel alive, to forget… but forget what? Life? Missions? Asuka? Funny, Youji thought, the way people fall almost without meaning to into their habits, how we don't stop to think about why we do the things we do, or don't…

"Haven't you really thought about it either?" Ken was frowning, but Youji could tell it was only in thought. "I mean, if you just do it 'cause you can that doesn't bother me, but isn't there a reason?" Shouldn't there be a reason?  
"Life isn't always logical, Ken." Youji said quietly. "There's not always a good reason." Or, if there is, it'd take such deep digging to unearth it and the reason was likely to be so uncompromisingly strange, or painful, or awkward, that it was hardly worth it. Better off living in ignorance.  
"Tell me about it. But, you know… if I was going to go _sleep_ with someone, I'd kind of want there to be a good reason."

Of course you would, Youji thought, and he did so affectionately. You're Ken. You don't know any other way to be. Even if it was only a result of the values that had gotten to Ken first it was hard to imagine him any other way than this, half-knowing, half-naïve. Sex should mean something, Ken had decided. He'd accepted that it didn't always, couldn't always, but still he thought it'd be nice if it did. Deep down, Youji couldn't help but think that maybe he had a point.

(Sometimes, most times, all he wanted was sex but there were nights when sex wasn't enough, because it hadn't really been what he was after. Nights like that he'd know he was chasing her, chasing Asuka: all he found were imitations and pale ones at that. They never managed to make him forget her. The only person he'd met who'd even come close to managing that was—)

"You want to be in love." Youji said, and smiled when Ken looked indignant. "There's nothing wrong with it, Kenken."

(—wasn't even a woman.)

"That's not what you said about Yuriko." Ken pointed out. Did he sound bitter? Just a little, but the bitterness was there. "If you don't think there's anything the matter with it why'd you tell me I had no right to be with her?"  
Youji shrugged. He'd often wondered about that himself; he'd always known he was in no position to talk. He'd known that, one day, Ken would ask him why. "It didn't seem right." He offered, knowing full well it sounded strange, lame, confusing. "You weren't thinking, someone had to. There wasn't enough there." I didn't want you to go, either – but that, Youji knew, would have sounded even stranger.  
"You don't think I loved her?" Ken's surprise bore the faintest undercurrent of anger, struggling to escape from the confines of his incredulity. "God _dammit_, Youji, I can't believe you! How the Hell do you think you know what I was feeling?"  
"I wasn't saying that." Youji replied with, to Ken's mind, infuriating nonchalance. "But could you have told her the truth, Ken?"  
"The truth?" Ken demanded. "_What_ truth?"

And realized he knew exactly what Youji was talking about.

Ken raised his head, meeting Youji's eyes only by accident. The blonde looked sleepy, yes, but dead serious, cold and sober as stone; the same determined, aggrieved look he'd found in those eyes the day Youji had surprised him outside Yuriko's apartment and, somehow, not what he had expected from the man. Not now, not ever. Caught short on Youji's sudden gravity, Ken fell silent. He knew what Youji was talking about and Youji knew exactly what his answer would have been.

He had always known he couldn't have told Yuriko anything. She could never have understood, never have forgiven him for what he was – he wouldn't even have wanted her to.

"I'll take that as a no, then." Youji said into the silence.  
"Shut up, Youji." Ken said sharply. Dangerously.  
"I thought as much." Youji said coolly – it was as if Ken had never spoken. "What the Hell kind of relationship do you think you could ever have had with that girl if you couldn't even have been honest with her? You couldn't have lied to her forever, you know… you think she wouldn't have found out when all this caught up with you? How many enemies do you think you've already made, Ken? You think people like that would've let you alone just because you wanted them to? You think _Kritiker_ would have done?"  
"Shut up, for God's sake—"  
"They wouldn't have let go. Not Kritiker, that's not the way they work. You know," Youji said, and he said it gently, even sadly, "they'd probably have ordered us to kill you. Just because they could…" To prove a point to you, to all of us. "They wouldn't have let you live, Ken. You know too much for that." Because assassins could never really retire. Because this was life.  
"Shut up." Ken said again, quietly and desperately. "_Please_, Youji."

Youji had been prepared for a shout. He'd half-expected Ken to lash out. Ken had decked people, himself included, over far less, in his time… he'd been expecting anger and he hadn't got it. Ken had drawn in on himself, his posture unconsciously defensive; he didn't look angry so much as he did upset. Shocked. He knew Youji was only telling the truth and that was the whole problem.

He must have looked forlorn because Youji leant over and tenderly, hesitantly allowed one hand to rest lightly on the curve of his shoulder. The strangeness, the unexpected thrill of contact made Ken tense slightly, but he didn't pull away. To look had felt wrong but to touch felt different; that felt only horribly, even frighteningly right.

"You're looking in the wrong places, kid." Youji said softly. "But that doesn't mean you should stop looking."

At first Ken didn't say anything. He just dropped his head, gazing intently at the scuffed floor tiles, feeling obscurely guilty. He shouldn't have needed Youji to point these things out to him. He had always known he was being selfish, known he should have stepped back from Yuriko the minute he became aware – late, too damned late! – that she was starting to hope, to put her faith in him. What did it say about him that he hadn't let go until the bitter end when inside he'd always known what his decision was going to be, what it had to be? He'd always known he'd end by betraying her.

If Yuriko was wrong, he thought, then what's right? He glanced up, meeting Youji's eyes, and was once again surprised by the look he thought he'd found there. Youji was smiling again, that strange, serious little smile that had so perplexed him before. What's right? Is _this_…?

You're crazy, Hidaka. You're reading too much into this. What's a touch on the shoulder, what's a smile? He was getting ahead of himself. He was losing it— and why in Hell would he want it to be otherwise? This was Youji.

"Is that why you didn't want me to leave, then?" He asked finally. Hoping that would be it, that it wouldn't be it, that maybe Youji had warned him off leaving only because he wanted him to stay…  
"Pretty much." Well, Youji thought, at least we're getting there. "You're safer here."  
"Here." Ken said uncertainly. He was safer here? He knew it wasn't at all funny, only sad and strange, but for some reason he felt a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, found himself biting back a small, slightly hysterical giggle. "You think _this_ is _safe_? Why do you care if I'm safe or not anyway?"  
"Why?" Youji asked in surprise. "Why do you think I care, Ken?"  
And why was he asking him that? "I don't know why, so I'm asking."  
"You really don't know?"  
"I really don't know." Ken said. And realized that he was wrong.

This was Youji. Only Youji. Why, Ken wondered, did he feel so nervous all of a sudden? Why did he feel – God damn, he felt cornered; he'd fallen into the snare long before he'd realized it even existed and somehow he couldn't bring himself to mind it. He'd been trapped on Youji's gaze, yet Ken couldn't make himself look away.

"Youji, you didn't fucking _plan_ this—"

Oh, yes he had.

Youji moved fast sometimes, so damned fast, but still he was grace. He'd grabbed Ken by the shoulders before the boy had a chance to react, before he could put himself out of reach and in so doing out of danger. His grasp was almost painful, the embrace he pulled Ken into a taut, definite thing, speaking only of another kind of entrapment. His kiss, though – that was gentle, almost hesitant; asking for acceptance, not demanding surrender.

And it felt only natural to give him that. To close his eyes, to relax into Youji's embrace, to slip his arms around the man's neck and hesitantly and helplessly respond. Youji. His teammate, his friend – what in Hell _was_ he? You didn't kiss your friends – that sly, egotistical, conniving bastard… it felt right to give him that.

Ken hadn't been shocked by Youji's actions, much less disgusted. On some level he realized he had seen this coming, seen it and welcomed it. Youji had kissed him and all Ken had felt was relief. To think the answer should have been so simple. He would have wondered what was wrong with him if he hadn't already known he didn't give a damn.

Oddly, he felt more annoyed when Youji broke the kiss than he had done at being kissed in the first place…

"Okay, you got me." Youji admitted, drawing back – just a little, not enough to break the embrace. He hadn't needed to look at Ken to know the boy was blushing. "I planned this."  
Ken blinked. Took a deep breath, held it, let it out. Where was the anger? Shouldn't he have been angry about this? "You did what? Holy shit, Youji, you're one Hell of an actor then… Why?"  
Youji laughed softly, briefly. Oh, Ken. Wasn't the why of it obvious? "You're an idiot, Hidaka," he said affectionately, granting Ken a soft, totally genuine smile. "Don't change."

He had meant it, then. Ken looked at Youji in surprise for a heartbeat, then he smiled back. Relieved, only relieved. Funny how sometimes he wouldn't realize he'd been feeling tense until the moment when tension broke – funny how, all of a sudden, he thought he might like to cry. He didn't know what to say, what to do, even where to look… all there was to do was let instinct have its head.

This time the kiss was a brief, clumsy, almost accidental thing, unexpected and far more shocking than the first had been, leaving Ken almost as surprised as it did Youji. In some way, however, it had been assured, even strangely relaxed; there had been a confidence behind it that the first could never have possessed. A certainty that it would be welcomed.

There were differences, Youji realized, between kissing Ken and being kissed by him, and the discrepancies charmed.

Sometimes you didn't need words to be understood. It seemed strange to Youji – he'd grown used to the unspoken demand for… something, the way so many of the women he had known (butterflies of women, gaudy and ephemeral and unreal, women who didn't even exist for him when taken out of their single context) extorted the words from him all thewhile knowing he didn't mean them, never could have done. The phrase, stale and cheapened though it was by a thousand and one nights passed in the arms of God knew who, was on the tip of his tongue and yet something in Ken's eyes was telling him, don't say it. You don't need to say anything.

He said nothing; he didn't have to. He'd already been understood. Youji knew Ken well enough to know the words would have meant nothing at all. They would only have embarrassed him.

"You're a total jerk, Kudou." Ken heard himself say into the gathering silence, and understood he didn't mean a word of it. He was saying something completely different.  
"Probably. But you wouldn't want me to change, either." Youji said easily.  
"No," Ken admitted through an awkward yet curiously becoming smile. "Probably not… I cannot _believe_ you goddamn planned this." Was this really the best way Youji could think of to break this to me? He wondered, and suspected he were blushing again.  
Nor can I, Youji thought. He certainly couldn't believe it had worked. "It was worth it, though."  
"Idiot." Ken said with no animosity at all. He actually sounded curiously affectionate. "I'm gonna get you for this."  
He would as well. How, Youji didn't know, but he didn't doubt that Ken meant it. "Do it later, okay?"

… it shouldn't have worked. By rights it wouldn't have done. Youji knew he was in no position to have expected anything of the sort; he hadn't done, not really. Not from Ken. Good God, and to think of all the time he'd spent watching the boy. He'd been sure he'd missed nothing – nothing save that Ken must, in his turn, have been watching him back. How could he have missed that? Even now, sitting propped uncomfortably against a set of shelves, his arms wrapped loosely around Ken's waist, it seemed odd to think of it… but this wasn't the time for questions.

_Why me_ could wait. It was enough for now that it was him.

Ken grew uncomfortable, fidgeting and shifting position so that he were sat by Youji's side, stretching one leg slightly to work out a cramp and yawning. He wasn't trying to get away; he didn't seem to mind the way Youji draped an arm casually about his shoulders. There were worse things for Youji to be than close to him. Worse places to be than this, though he kind of wished… oh, to Hell with it. There'd be time enough to get Youji back for this one, arrogant, manipulative jerk that he was…

"Hey, what's the time?" He asked suddenly.  
Youji blinked, the question catching him unawares. He'd barely thought of the time. Shifting slightly, he leant over Ken so that he could look at his wristwatch without lifting his arm from his companion's shoulders. From the look on his face, Ken wasn't quite sure if he should be irritated by the action or not; he said nothing, the look in his eyes betraying an obscure kind of amusement. "Ten past eight— no. Ten past _nine_."  
"That late?" Ken frowned. Surprised. "Well, shit."  
"That late, yeah. Guess I really owe you an apology." Youji said. He grinned, the smile saying that he knew he'd been misbehaving but he hoped for, even expected Ken's forgiveness anyway.  
"Isn't there anything we can do about this?" Ken asked, without any real expectation that Youji would have been able to come up with an answer in the interim. He wasn't even surprised by Youji's shrug; all he did was sigh in vague discontent and, without really meaning to do any such thing, draw a little closer to him. It was getting cold. Of course it was; the heating in the shop would have turned off some time ago. Nothing to be done about that, either. Nothing save sit it out.  
"I might have planned this," Youji said with a rueful smile, "but I wasn't kidding when I said we were stuck."  
"Goddamn it, Kudou. Aren't there easier ways to get a kiss?"

Ken spoke impulsively, only to blush furiously once he realized quite what he'd said, considered the implications of it. Leaving Youji to respond to his objections by kissing him again. A long, lingering kiss, passionate and assured – I, Youji thought, could definitely get used to this.

Conversation died, the pair falling into an easy, companiable silence. Content for the moment merely to sit and wait, to grow accustomed to the simple fact of one another. It already felt right, Youji noted, to have his arms about Ken in spite of the stark incongruity that was his presence there; the other two were just going to have to learn to cope with it. With us. There was no way things could start and finish here. He smiled for no other reason than he wanted to as Ken relaxed into the embrace, letting his head fall almost accidentally onto Youji's shoulder. Ken was bored, he was tired of waiting, he couldn't think of anything else that needed to be said… he was drifting into a daze, strangely comforted by Youji's presence, by the warmth of the young man's body where it pressed against his own.

He couldn't think what this felt like because it wasn't like anything he could comfortably define. It was… Ken realized he couldn't say what it was. Safe, maybe. It was something he'd needed without even realizing it. Had he ever had anything like this? Ken knew he'd grown used to being alone, in a weird kind of way he expected it… and now Youji of all people was offering him something different, and Ken couldn't claim to mind. Everyone had to have something, didn't they? No matter what kind of a person you were, you had to have something—

Maybe it was better than nothing. Anything was better than nothing.

And sleep came only accidentally.

It was only on waking (abruptly, startled into vigilance by the sound of footsteps in the room outside, of someone tentatively grasping the handle of the door that confined them) that Ken realized he had fallen asleep. Raising his head, he glanced quickly and anxiously at the door then turned to gaze at Youji who, alike dazed and startled out of sleep, was massaging his neck to try and stave off an impending cramp. He had been asleep on, oh God, he'd been sleeping on Youji's shoulder hadn't he? And Youji, going by his smile, hadn't minded in the slightest…

Ken blinked once, twice, drew breath in preparation for – he wasn't sure quite what. A clumsy denial, an apology? Maybe both, or neither. _We weren't doing anything_— The words died before they had even fully formed as Youji held up one finger, pressed it lightly against his lips. A gentle, eloquent call for silence and calm; the contact had startled Ken into silence long before its import sunk in. This changes nothing, Ken, he was saying. It's a complication, yes, but we knew it had to happen. Nothing's going to change.

A soft, constrained curse – mild, catching on the breath. The protesting creak of the door as the lock was forcibly sprung and it was wrenched open. A sudden flood of brighter light: both Youji and Ken had forgotten how gloomy the stockroom truly was and they found themselves squinting into the unexpected glare, Ken raising one arm to shield his eyes. Omi, stood in the doorway, his wide blue eyes full of startled, active consternation.

For a moment they simply regarded one another, Omi hesitating on the threshold and gazing at his teammates, surprised by their proximity, Ken's air of apprehensive discomfiture, the hand Youji still had casually resting on the small of Ken's back. Ken seemed to be having difficulty meeting Omi's eyes; he had a horrible feeling he was blushing again. Oh, God, he thought, we must look so stupid… Youji, by contrast, gave the boy a wide, confident smile.

"What kept you?" Youji asked, raising a wry eyebrow. Filling the silence.  
Omi hesitated. His eyes drifted down to the floor. "Youji-kun," he said finally, "how long have you two been in here?"  
"Long enough to be utterly sick of it." Youji was already getting to his feet, languidly stretching, working a crick out of his back. "Thought you guys'd forgotten about us." Omi smiled awkwardly; he pretty much had.  
"The door got jammed," Ken said obviously and hastily, scrambling gracelessly up after Youji. The blonde was already brushing past Omi, stepping out into the body of the shop; Ken hurried after him, fighting against the uneasy, if irrational conviction that, should he linger too long in the stockroom, the door would swing to and trap him again. He wondered what time it was. Late, he guessed. Maybe so late it was early. Pitch black outside and the road almost deserted. What a waste of an evening… but still he couldn't quite bring himself to feel annoyed.  
"Well… I didn't think you wanted to be in there, Ken-kun." Omi replied, a bright if apologetic smile tugging at his lips.  
"Of course he didn't, Kenken." Youji scolded playfully. "Like we'd have spent all evening in there for the fun of it…"

Oh yeah? You planned it, Ken thought, looking sharply at Youji, but said nothing. Some things Omi didn't have to know.

Wasn't going to know. Omi wasn't looking at them. He had flicked the lights off in the stockroom and now led the way to the shop door offering, as he walked, a confused, contrite explanation for his failure to notice their absence, to arrive earlier, an explanation neither Youji or Ken was really listening to. He didn't know, had no way of knowing his lateness wasn't an issue, that it didn't bother either of them in the slightest. He didn't know, was never going to know they were both, in a soft, subtle, understated way, grateful for his lapse.

Omi hadn't noticed Youji's disinterest and Ken's palpable distraction, or the glances Ken was stealing at Youji from beneath his untidy fringe. He hadn't really realized that they were walking side by side or, if he had, hadn't imagined it meant anything. He certainly didn't notice it when Youji – proving a point both to Ken and to himself – reached for Ken's hand, or the way Ken started when Youji's fingers closed around his own. He lifted his head, meeting Youji's eyes, his expression questioning. Youji's answering smile was enough; it was everything he'd needed. It said far more than those three banal words, the only way they could have described the uneasy something stirring between them, could ever have done.

This thing, this stirring, shouldn't have felt right but right was only what it was. And it was better than nothing.

It was better than nothing by far.

-ende-


End file.
